Year: 2010

Quality of Engineering

Very interesting talk from Christof Bartneck at TU/e (Technical University of Eindhoven) explaining Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ) in simple design and engineering terms.

As an engineer I might have used the word engineering as much as he used the word design, (and he says in the Q&A session he doesn’t make a real distinction here) but I like the simplified common terminology (in parenthesis) and the venn diagram showing design in the same space as quality overlapping people and artefacts. Love the defence of engineers at the end … creativity in solving problems is the essence … in the root of the word “ingenious”, and the ingenuity means that the creativity is not necessarily visibly obvious to the naked eye.

Like the use of the word “explore” too … really brings out the qualitative / direct participation aspect so much better than generalizing the word research beyond specific scientific methodologies.

Also like the focus on the qualitative choices ahead of scientific methods … wonder if Nick Maxwell, philosopher of science, is on his radar ?

Working With Your Hands

Interesting to see Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft” published in Europe as “The Case for Working with your Hands”, and reviewed here in The Irish Times.

It was the working with your hands lyric from Lamb Lies Down on Broadway that came to mind when I reviewed the US edition just about a year ago. (And followed-up on later reading.)

Thanks to Henry for forwarding the link.

Where were you ?

When you first heard Nessun Dorma ? Nope, not the world cup / championships / olympics / whatever, watching The Killing Fields, that’s where. Nice touch where Sydney just turns up the volume to bring it from incidental background to explicit foreground.

Rewatched on DVD over the weekend. Don’t know whether it was a director’s extended cut, but the balance was quite different to my earlier recollection. The killing-fields sequences are actually quite brief – enough to shock – but most of the film is the interpersonal responsibility and cameraderie of the groups of multi-national  journalists helping each other out, and later Pran taking care of the young son of one of the Khmer’s factional leaders as he escapes.

In fact the words trust and (nothing to) forgive stuck in the later episodes, even the US engagement in Cambodia is treated as a pragmatic tactic of war. The naive doctrine of the Khmer – anyone old enough to remember pre-revolutionary life is part of the problem – is clear and briefly dealt with. The cheesiest moment has to be the irony of being helped by the young guy who remembers being given the iconic Mercedes star. John Malkovic (great character BTW) returns to voice Sydney’s responsibilty.

And, I didn’t even recall the somewhat cheesey use of Lennon’s Imagine in the closing scenes. Maturing with age, the viewer that is.

Faith in the Golden Rule

Do as you would be done by.

I don’t think Karen Armstrong actually mentions “god” in this 20 minute prizewinning TED talk from 2008 (with 2009 updates) on the Abrahamic monotheistic religions.  The resultant charter and a promotional film. Passed me by in real time, but very interesting and positive.

Looked up Karen Armstrong as a result of (Third Wave) Dave Thomas reference to her 1994 book “A History of God – The 4000 year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam“. Must add that to Jo Campbell’s “Masks of God” which I’ve still not read yet.

[Post Note – re-watching this, I recall the particular application of the golden rule to others, to strangers, to “know” strangers – reminded me of the Greek/Homeric tradition described in Boyd’s “Origin of Stories” …. and in fact Armstrong mentions “The Illiad” in this talk.]

Plaque Honours Pirsig

Here’s one for those Pirsig Pilgrims. I heard today from Montana State University that a commemorative plaque has been installed right outside the President’s office in Montana Hall, where Pirsig taught from ’59 to ’61. Some ceremony is anticipated later in the year.

What a Disaster

At so many levels ? For the industry and for BP, not to mention the dead and injured as well as the obvious environmental effects. Deepwater Horizon was ABS classified.

What I can’t figure is why, if the leak is so well defined at the sea bed, and sufficiently concentrated to be corralled at the surface (to burn it) why it can’t be sucked-up, or captured in huge floating “bags” – like filling a hot-air ballon by natural convection (?) then the water-oil mix shipped away to be separated ? Must be scope for better future emergency devices. Do BOP’s ever work when you need them ?  Not my specialist area, but …

(BTW that’s actually Alabama, Mobile Bay, where Florida is indicated on the map.)

Post Note : And more leaks / five times worse than originally believed.

Still glad to see the engineers are working on better solutions – similar to my suggestion above … a dome over the top and … suck. Better late than never, and there’s always the next time.

Engineers are believed to be working on a dome-like device to cover oil rising to the surface and pump it to container vessels but it may be weeks before this is in place.

[Post Note : these junk-shots and top-hats are of course not new approaches to such sub-sea blow-outs. They are normal early attempts until proper intercept relief wells can be drilled, but these take time. Thanks to Alex for the old news links. Remember the disaster has already occurred at this point, not just a blow-out but a failure of multiple BOP’s, both preventable. There was in fact a much more recent and even more similar well blow-out in the North Sea only months before Deepwater – documented in the later reports – also inexplicably not communicated to the Macondo crew and management.]

Psychedelic Rehab

Interesting NY Times piece on official approval to pursue medical research into Psilocybin (thanks to Marsha at MoQ-Discuss for the tip off). And on that subject, look out for Sue Blackmore’s piece on Albert Hofmann – father of LSD – on BBC Radio 4 (19th April 3:45)

Typical comment on the NYT piece

“Surgery comes with risks, but we see no clamour to criminalize surgery”

Odd that the Radio 4 series is called “In the Footsteps of Giants” rather than “On the Shoulders of Giants” – mixing their metaphors.

Information is a Form of Garbage

Interesting blog from writer Scott Berkun, only just discovered and browsed around this evening following a link from Matt (WordPress). No rocket science or genius insights just the common sense to say it (and do it, and ask questions …)

(Information is a form of garbage), and yet oddly addicted to cramming more of it in our brains. The rare commodity is the wisdom for how to think about information, and that starts with asking questions about it. What is a fact? Why was this fact chosen instead of another?

That “why?” question is so important – there is no fact independent of motive or intention in context, even if it is simply the act of selecting the (indisputable) fact to express. And hence why “trust” is such a valuable commodity.